Orwell Astronomical Society (Ipswich)
Globular Cluster Orbiting M31
We are familiar with globular clusters around our own galaxy, for example Omega Centauri, M13, etc. But what about other galaxies? M31 being currently high in the sky presented an ideal opportunity to look for globular clusters in orbit around it. I followed a reference to extra-galactic globular clusters in Sue French's "Deep-Sky Wonders" [1] and set out to image G1, the brightest of the globular clusters orbiting M31, approximately 2.5° from the centre of the galaxy. My image is below, taken with a Celestron EdgeHD 200 mm Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with SBIG 8300 camera and LPF, 2x2 binning.
An image somewhat sharper than mine (!) was APOD for 17 October 1998.
[1]
Sue French, "Deep-Sky Wonders: A Tour of the Universe with Sky and Telescope's Sue French", Firefly Books, 2011.
Nigel Evans